Food Security in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries: Challenges and Prospects
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Journal of Food Security, 2019, Vol. 7, No. 5, 159-169 Available online at http://pubs.sciepub.com/jfs/7/5/2 Published by Science and Education Publishing DOI:10.12691/jfs-7-5-2 Food Security in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries: Challenges and Prospects Tarek Ben Hassen1,*, Hamid El Bilali2 1Department of International Affairs, College of Arts and Sciences, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar 2International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies (CIHEAM-Bari), Valenzano (Bari), Italy *Corresponding author: [email protected] Received August 06, 2019; Revised September 10, 2019; Accepted September 15, 2019 Abstract Food insecurity concerns are as old as humanity. Food security exists when all population, at all times, has access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food. It is built on four pillars, namely food availability, food access, food utilisation, and stability. While it is widely admitted that food security increases with economic development, also rich countries in the Near East and North Africa (NENA) region, such as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, face specific challenges. Therefore, this review paper analyses the state, determinants and perspectives of food security in GCC region. Historically, food security was not an issue for the GCC states. In fact, GCC states are capital rich and have no foreign exchange limitation for food import. Consequently, due to their robust fiscal position resulting in high buying power, these countries, have been less vulnerable to price risk than other food importers; and able to bridge the shortfall in domestic production. As a result, in 2018, the six GCC members have been ranked as the most food secure in the Arab world and among the most food secure countries in the world. However, in the wake of the 2007–2008 global food crisis, food security became an ongoing challenge. The crisis exposed the high dependence of GCC countries on imports, limits of import-based food policies and the need to increase the local production. However, agriculture is limited by several natural conditions, such as scarce water resources and poor soils, and aquifers have been heavily exploited above the average natural recharge. Further, potentially, more critical to GCC food security is availability risk, which arises when an import-dependent country is not able to obtain food, even if it has sufficient funds to purchase it. The paper makes the case for promoting a productive and sustainable agriculture, with high resources use efficiency, to increase food security in the GCC. Keywords: food security, water security, food self-sufficiency, sustainable agriculture, GCC Cite This Article: Tarek Ben Hassen, and Hamid El Bilali, “Food Security in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries: Challenges and Prospects.” Journal of Food Security, vol. 7, no. 5 (2019): 159-169. doi: 10.12691/jfs-7-5-2. Indeed, it is increasingly recognised that attaining food security is more complicated than just producing more 1. Introduction food, as the fundamental issue concerns access to nutritious and safe food [9-13]. The 1996 World Food The great challenge for the coming decades will be the Summit definition of food security is still widely used [14]. task of increasing food production to ensure food security It was officially reaffirmed in the 2009 Declaration of for a world population of 7.6 billion people, and expected the World Summit on Food Security [15,16], with the to be 9 million by 2050. Achieving a world without addition of social access to food: “Food security exists hunger and malnutrition is one of the aims of the 2030 when all people, at all times, have physical, social and Agenda for Sustainable Development. In fact, ensuring economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food for all meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an (Target 2.1) and eliminating all forms of malnutrition active and healthy life” [15]. Food security is built on (Target 2.2) are prominent targets of the second four pillars [4,17,18,19]: food availability (i.e. sufficient Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of the 2030 Agenda quantities of food available on a consistent basis); (i.e. End hunger, achieve food security and improved food access (i.e. having sufficient resources to obtain nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture). Moreover, appropriate and nutritious foods); food use/utilisation (i.e. the achievement of SDG2 depends on and contributes to appropriate food use based on knowledge of basic the attainment of many other goals of the 2030 Agenda nutrition and care); and stability in food availability, and sustainable development as a whole [2]. access and utilization [20]. Food security concept has evolved and been expanded A recent report on the State of Food Security and over recent decades [3-8] with a change of focus from Nutrition in the World [2] shows that the number of increasing food production to improving food access. undernourished people has been growing and was 160 Journal of Food Security estimated to nearly 821 million in 2017 (17 million more vulnerable to price risk (i.e., the risk that food is available than in 2016), so around one out of every nine people in for import but the importing country may not be able to the world. The situation is worsening in South America afford to purchase a sufficient amount for its residents) and most of Africa. Conflicts and climate change are than other food importers; and able to bridge the shortfall among the key drivers behind the recent uptick in global in domestic production [25]. As a result, in 2018, the six hunger. Indeed, climate change threatens to erode and GCC members have been ranked as the most food secure reverse gains made in ending hunger and malnutrition. in the Arab world and among the most food secure Moreover, food insecurity contributes to overweight and countries in the world in the Global Food Security Index obesity and the three burdens of malnutrition (undernutrition, [26] 1 (Table 1). overweight/obesity and micronutrient deficiencies) coexist in many countries. Table 1. Ranking of the GCC countries in the Global Food security Index, 2018 Food insecurity and malnutrition are still relevant issues in the Near East and North Africa (NENA) region [21]. In Country Global Rank Rank in the Arab world their discussion paper on “Food Security and Economic Qatar 22 1 Development in the Middle East and North Africa”, Kuwait 28 2 Breisinger et al. [22] put that “…the region’s longstanding challenges persist; yet taking immediate action is more Oman 29 3 urgent in light of the recent, global food, fuel, and UAE 31 4 financial crisis and projected severe impacts of climate Saudi Arabia 32 5 change”. While it is widely admitted that food insecurity decreases with economic development, also rich countries Bahrain 41 6 in the region such as the Gulf Cooperation Council – GCC Source: The Economist Intelligence Unit [26]. – countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates - UAE) face specific However, GCC countries are food secure but not food challenges for achieving long-term, sustainable food self-sufficient. It is therefore clear that food security “does security. Therefore, the present review paper analyses the not equal self-sufficiency” [22]. Despite their wealth and state, determinants and perspectives of food security in affluence, these countries lack control over their food GCC not only in a changing climate but also unstable sources and are highly dependent on imports—thus lack global geopolitical context. food sovereignty [27]. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is a group of six In fact, in the wake of the 2007–2008 global food crisis, Arab Middle East countries bordering the Gulf, covering food security became an ongoing challenge. Food security an area of 2,672,700 sq.km and with a total population of assumes particular political significance in the GCC approximately 56.65 million and combined GDP of for numerous reasons [28]. As highlighted by Lippman US$1.537trn in 2018. Enormous hydrocarbons reserves [29] “no product or commodity carries the immediacy (30% of the proven oil reserves and 22.2% of the proven or political sensitivity of food”. Since the GCC natural gas reserves of the world) compared with a modest countries rely heavily on food imports, which make them national populations, have made the region one of the vulnerable to price and supply shocks, the stability and wealthiest in the world. Oil, natural gas revenues and the availability dimensions of food security are petrochemical industries still form the main part of the critical issues. Three elements contribute to food national income and government revenues in GCC availability: domestic food production, distribution, and countries. GCC countries face numerous environmental food import [30]. Assessing food availability determines challenges and will have to reconcile the many conflicting food security. This assessment is particularly important priorities from economic diversification, water scarcity, for GCC countries, which are highly dependent on food security, desertification, environmental protection, food imports. Nevertheless, a country that has low and conservation to the impacts of climate change [23]. self-sufficiency and is highly dependent on food imports This paper is based mainly on secondary data from written can still be food secure as long as it is able to finance documents, governmental reports, websites, newspapers its food imports [27]. The 2007–2008 global food crisis articles, and reports from different sources such as the has exposed the high dependence of GCC states FAO; UNEP; United Nations System High Level Task on imports and the lack of clear food security policies. Force on Global Food Security (UN-HLTF); IFAD; The food crisis of 2007-2008 raised awareness of OECD, WFP; associated with a review of peer-reviewed the supply and price risks associated with a dependence on scientific literature dealing with food production, food the world market [31].